


Hellbent

by GalliumCore



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood and Violence, Demon Hunters, Demon/Human Relationships, Demons, Interspecies Relationship(s), Interspecies Sex, M/M, Multi, Other, Post-War, Soul Bond, Teratophilia, Worldbuilding, and eventually, logic declared i serve it thusly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:47:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24003055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalliumCore/pseuds/GalliumCore
Summary: It is the aftermath of an Old War, begot by demons and the humans that drove them to madness, each now clings to their strongholds and seeks to wipe the other out. There is little space for those that do not fall into one group or the other in the struggle to survive. A demi-demon finds himself fighting for more than his life. An Oathbreaker takes a risk against the sacrifice of his ancestors. Both are desperate for their voices to be heard.
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Kudos: 1





	1. The Conclave

Darius walked the ancient halls of the Conclave with shoulders back. Around him, others wore their inhumanity openly, using it to issue an unspoken challenge, a silent threat. Their forms ran the gamut of shapes and sizes, as many and varied as the beings themselves, but he knew them all by one name: demons. 

They were, of course, not demons in any religious sense. They were simply a natural force. And like any other part of nature they were neither good nor evil, they had as many languages, races and cultures as those of humanity. Humans had known them by many names over the millennia but largely tarred them with the same single brush, a favor the demons returned to them in kind. Both civilisations stood long divided by the Old War, reticent to let the wounds fade. Demons and their ilk had retreated past wilds where humanity dared not go, safe within invisible walls shielding them from the conflict of the badlands. Where once humanity had likewise remained within their walled cities, as the memory of demons waned the townships had spread into the wilds. They bought with them hunters, targeting any demon unfortunate and desperate enough to risk life beyond the Gates, and waking the monsters the Old War left behind, not that the meetings of the Conclave had given the ongoing conflicts any consideration. Not that he hadn’t tried to raise his point - but to little avail. Both worlds had little place for those such as he, who fit in neither here nor there. Both worlds had those who sought to make this point painfully clear to him.

One such being stepped across his path, lifting her chin so as to sneer down her broad nose - more a muzzle - baring ragged teeth in the disgusted curl of a lip. Their gazes locked and neither spoke for a tense moment, her four black eyes boring into his hazel ones. The hair on the back of his neck rose, a sensation of static crawling spider-like over his skin, all reactions to the invisible force she pushed against him. Her will was plain, all the weight of her disgust pressing on him, wanting him to crumble, willing him to falter in fear. Had he been entirely human, it might have worked. Instead, it sparked his ire, a hot spot burning within his ribs.

“You think you scare me like that?”

“You should be scared, _human._ ” She said the word like it was sour, lips pursing as if the vitriol was as much a taste as an edge to her voice, “There is no place for your kind here. Not after what you humans have done.”

His eyes narrowed. “So I’m human enough for blame, then?”

“Not human enough for the humans to want you. We don’t want you here either,” She leered.

“Funny, I guess I’m demon enough to get through the Gates, demon enough for these,” He lifted his hands, the action pulling the long sleeves of his jacket back to show silvered scars around his wrists - scars like he’d been manacled in red hot irons. They weren’t alone, his body was marred with a lattice of other marks, marks left by weapons designed to hunt demons, to kill them. “Tell me, Avret, where are _your_ scars?”

The insult hit, blunt and inelegant as it was. The overbearing push of her will shuddered and faltered. The demon was cleanskinned and unmarked, and though her bloodline sung with fighting prowess she hadn’t tasted combat outside of ritualised sparring. She certainly had never come to blows with the kinds of weapons that left marks such as those on him. Her sneer turned to an enraged snarl, haughty angle of her chin dropping like a bull about to charge.

“You would disgrace us by breaking the peace of the Conclave, Avret?” A sonorous voice interjected. Though it wasn’t loud, it carried clear authority in the calm, cool lilt. 

Avret wavered for a moment, weight on her toes. Fighting was forbidden within the halls and hours of Conclave, even the closing ones spent milling before the host dispersed back to their clans, keeps, and caverns. Her contempt almost sent her charging forwards - then she settled back onto her heels, regaining her composure by funneling her rage into haughty contempt. Snorting out her nose, Avret turned without further word and stalked into the crowd. Darius stared after her, then swept a steely look around to rid himself of the lingering gazes of others who had doubtlessly hoped the huge demon would beat him into a stain on the floor then and there so they’d be rid of him once and for all. 

“One day, she’s going to hit you in your smart-ass mouth, Darius.” Unlike Avret, the newcomer looked significantly more human though there were easy tells of his true nature - the unnaturally bright blue eyes, the long teeth, the smattering of spines on corner of his jaw, the long, claw-tipped fingers of the hand he used to tuck his silver hair behind an ear, the six small horns that parted that hair like shards of a broken crown. 

The demi-demon gave a harsh huff, “You’d love that, wouldn’t you?”

“Actually, no, Darius, I wouldn’t,” His friend began, walking close alongside him, “I can’t stand this infighting, this needless posturing. It’s archaic. I know _you_ can’t resist stirring the pot but Avret should know better.”

“Yeah, well, some people just want to drag the Old War into a new one,” Darius grumbled. “And don’t call me Darius, _Firebrand_ . Who names their kid ‘Darius _’_ anyway?”

The demon - who himself preferred Feiv or Feivush to the grandiose title Darius sneered at him - didn’t rise to the bait, nor answer the bitter rhetoric. He knew Darius had no parents to ask. Darius himself suspected his parents had either never cared enough to name their abominable child, or had not lived long enough to do so - the majority of demons and humans both regarded such relationships and their treasonous get with disdain tending to violence. The pair walked in silence through the halls, catching snippets of benign conversations, sound flowing like water over the ancient stonework. With the debates and formalities long since settled, the closing hours of Conclave were spent licking wounded egos, strengthening old ties, or solidifying new ones struck between blood and clanlines stretched thin by the War. Most talk quieted as the pair neared, some dipped their heads in recognition to Feiv as they stoically ignored Darius beside him, others shed calm forms for more inhuman ones at the sight of him, baring teeth or claws in blatant disgust or pride, or both. He ignored them with an air of tired indifference.

“I know why they do that - flexing their blood claim.” Darius muttered at length. Amongst the crowd he looked positively mundane and lacklustre in his weathered jacket. Human as he might look, he too was more than he appeared, but could only change with considerably more effort than the demons around him who flickered between forms with enviable ease.

“Don’t pay it any mind, Dare.” Feiv said dismissively, using Darius’s preferred name.

“Don’t pay it any mind? Just ignore people like Avret squaring up to me just for being here?” 

Darius said angrily. “I don’t care what they choose to look like, I’m getting sick of being treated like some traitor, some threat, year after year. It’s not like I could take them.”

“You couldn’t?” Feiv levelled a sidelong look at him.

“Of course not! I’m only _half_ as strong as them, after all, I’m only _half_ demon.” His tone was mocking but clearly directed at himself.

“Your blood is your blood, it is not split into portions, nor can it be diluted by either part of you. You’ve passed the gates, you’ve just as much right to be here as I do.” The demon said simply. 

“Yeah, that’s not how the world works, Feiv. I’m not demon enough for the Conclave, not human enough for anywhere else.”

This was a familiar and tired discussion between them. The demon tried a new tact, “Then why _did_ you come?”

Darius bridled at his friend’s rather pointed question. “What, you don’t want me here either?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“And what about you- you don’t think I’m enough of a threat? You’re so disgusted by humans that you can’t _bear_ to look fully like one, but not so threatened that you feel the need to show more tooth and claw, Imperial?”

“Why, because I look like this?” Feivush gestured to himself, considerably more human than even the calmest demons around them. “If I told you I looked like this because I _want_ to, would you believe me? This form is not a mockery, Dare.”

Darius didn’t reply but his mouth was set in an angry twist that told Feiv all he needed. 

The demon sighed heavily. “We’re all idiots. I’d hoped we’d begun to move _past_ these stupid superiority complexes - and I thought _you_ of all people wouldn’t care for them... We haven’t learned anything. In all these years, we haven’t learned a damn thing.”

“No. You haven’t.” Darius growled. “I’ve been here for _days_ and nobody has even mentioned the Unbound massing on the gates and the outlanders they drive before them. Nobody will hear _me_ talk because I’m not full blooded.”

“Didn’t I just say,” A strange steely anger came into Feiv’s voice, “That I don’t think too much of the concept of blood purity?”

“Easy for you to say, you’re Imperial, blood of the Oathbreaker. There’s not a single demon here who wouldn’t bend their knee and pledge if you asked. The rest of us don’t have titles or history. Nobody is mourning the loss of the outlanders because _their_ blood doesn’t matter. Nobody has mentioned those missing because they’ve been lost to madness or, if they’re lucky, cut down by hunters - the Conclave is the smallest I’ve ever seen it! But if it isn’t one of your precious bloodlines being massacred then you all don’t much care to talk about it, do you?” 

“You really think that I’m naive, that I don’t care?” Feiv tried to interject, but the demi-demon’s blood was up.

“It really looks that way,” Darius snarled, “People are _dying_ , Feivush, and fuck, you all probably won’t notice it until it’s just the few of you and an empty world filled with rabid Unbound and nothing else for you to lord over!”

It wasn’t until he stopped that Darius realised he had been shouting, that the hallway around them had become silent in the wake of his tirade. None of them would ever raise their voice to the Firebrand. Darius had no such qualms about their politics. He was too angry to care, too frustrated, too hurt. _Let them stare! At least now they’re listening._

Feivush was quiet and still. 

Darius shook his head when his friend offered no reply. “Fuck you, and your blood purity. I don’t see you or anyone else here lifting a hand to help.”

Feiv’s face distorted for the briefest second with pain - the heat of Darius’ anger and the accusation. The tall demon felt the stares of those around them like ice after the scalding tirade. He was suddenly aware the entire hall was fixed on them, fixed on the demi-demon who dared to speak to an Imperial so, anticipating his grand retaliation for the brazen act. Something seemed to crystallise in him as he realised this. His brilliant gaze, when he turned it back to Darius, was alight with a cold fire.

“I challenge you.” Feivush said simply. 

The hall fell instantly to deafening silence after his proclamation. Darius, like everyone else, knew that fighting was forbidden in the hours of Conclave. But a challenge of will was a far more dangerous way to fight than tooth and claw. Darius also knew initiating a challenge was highly ritualised, a dance meant to give each opponent as much opportunity to size each other up and bow out, to avoid coming to blows, to avoid risking it all.

“What?” Darius’ voice was soft with shock and the rage in him guttered for a second. 

“I challenge you, Darius. I challenge your will to stand against mine. Unless you still think you’re not enough?”

The Imperial’s goad struck the embers of rage in Darius despite his shock and stoked them into a hot fire. 

“What are your conditions?” Darius asked, as was his right. The challenger set the terms, all he had to do was accept or decline - but declining meant a forfeit, almost as bad as losing, provided of course that the challenger didn’t declare the loser to be killed outright.

The Imperial didn’t drop his eyes from Darius as he spoke his terms, clear enough to carry to all around them. “If I win, I will cast you out. You will be barred from this place and all like it, none of our kin will speak your name in kindness or welcome.”

“And if I lose…” Feiv continued, “I will Bind myself to you. Do you accept the challenge?”

The uneasy silence of the crowd around was broken with a ripple of murmurs. Binding - pledging one’s will and being to another- was almost unheard of. The Old War, begot by demons bound to a single Lord, driven to mindless madness and massacres, had put an end to most pledges. Feivush’s own line was the one to break and turn the tide, now he - an Imperial, an Oathbreaker - was tabling the chance to be bound to some demi-demon with no line or claim to speak of.

Darius, for once, was silent. If he lost, he would be forsaken, driven out, just like the Unbound - blood mad and exiled - and given he was barely accepted as human, he would have nowhere. Feivush was the closest he had to a friend, or so he had thought, and now it seemed his bastard temper had driven him away as well. A red-hot coal burned in his chest, fed by despair and anger, and it sealed his decision. If the demons wanted him gone so badly, Feivush was going to have to break him.

“I accept your challenge.”


	2. The Challenge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **  
>  _The pull on my flesh was just too strong,  
>  It stifled the choice and the air in my lungs.  
> Better not to breathe than to breathe a lie,  
> Cause when I open my body, I breathe a lie._**  
> -Mumford & Sons _'Broken Crown'_

The Conclave’s domed center had vaulted walls of soaring arches that bore no roof, leaving it open with only the lilac of the evening sky as a ceiling. A hallowed forum that oft sounded with wars of words so common in the Conclave, now rung with a pregnant silence. Darius and Feivush stood, in opposition, at the heart of the gathering, in the sunken middle ringed by stands of onlookers. A challenge such as this demanded an audience by all so that none could dispute the outcome. Darius ignored Avret leering from the front of the crowd and tried to find bleak comfort in finally having the Conclave’s attention instead. Besides, there was nothing she could do but leer, any interference in a challenge was punishable by death or worse. Even as he knew this, it didn’t make her obsidian stare any more bearable.  _ You’ve endured worse. _ Darius reminded himself.  _ You endure worse every single day. _

Both demon and half-demon waited, watching each other. Just because these challenges were not physical fights did not mean that the combatants had to stay distant to each other; the polished stone around them was pockmarked and scorched and cracked in testament to the ferocity of the ordeal. Darius expected, in fact, that Feivush would shed his human form to attempt to gain an edge on him. But not yet. 

Feivush’s sonorous voice split the heavy silence. “Are you ready?”

“I am.” Darius said, and let his unnatural senses reach out until they brushed Feivush’s own presence. It was like touching a live wire but he had grounded himself. He had faced this before in other forms - the wild, feral will of the Unbound was like blundering into a furnace and had overcome many lesser things and greater things than he, and even he had nearly been bested a few times by such uncontrolled force. 

The demi-demon didn’t try to batter Feivush’s presence. He knew he would just waste himself throwing himself at impervious walls. No, he must goad him out. He must wait. This first stage would be simple- a test of pushing and shoving.

When it happened, it was slower than he had thought, Feivush showing more control than others who might simply seek to bludgeon the other into submission. Darius felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up as the demon’s will - his essence, his sheer vital force - pushed against his own, testing for any weakness. It was calculated like a spider spinning it’s web, not the rabid assault of an Unbound will inflamed by madness. His head began to swim slightly with vertigo but Darius stood firm, not letting himself be torn this way or that by the press of the demon’s power, not giving him so much as an inch or a shake of his head to clear it. The Imperial seemed almost pleased to find he would not give at the first hurdle, the last point either combatants could back out. Neither did. And so the real dance and danger began. Feivush, like Darius, knew that this was not a simple test of strength.

“You’re stubborn.” Feiv spoke quietly. He didn’t need to shout. The sunken stone forum carried his voice clearly to all gathered to hear it.

“Tell me something I don’t know, Imperial.” Darius spat back.

“You think that you’re not good enough to take me.” The words, though soft, hit him like a blow. “You said it yourself, you think you’re not strong enough. You think that you’re weak.”

The pointed ends of the sentences came thudding into him like harpoons, Feivush trying to drive his will through Darius’s defences like stakes. They  _ hurt _ \- but not enough.

“I’m still standing, aren’t I?” He growled back.

“For how long? How long can you stand against me? The Firebrand, blood of the Oathbreaker, an Imperial among his kin.”

“Pure blooded is just a fancy way of saying inbred.” Darius returned the earlier blow in kind, presence turning jagged against Feiv’s and causing a momentary break in pressure. A heartbeat later, it returned with a vengeance. Darius’s ears popped as it turned the air around him slick in an instant, warping the image of the audience as each will rushed against the other like oil and water. An oily shimmer blossomed around the pair and the hall around them was lost, all of their attention fixated on the other. It was becoming clear that this would not resolve quickly, that it would be a true test of determination and endurance of self. 

Despite the vertiginous press of the demon’s presence, Darius stood firm like a lighthouse against storm-surge. The Imperial’s mouth twitched, veneer of calm breaking not into anger as he had hoped but a smirk that only served to infuriate him.

“Grin and posture all you want, your castes are just holdovers from some pigheaded ancients,” Darius growled, throat tightening from the effort. “Your blood doesn’t mean shit outside of the gates, out in the real world.”

“And yours? I know exactly what they think of you out there, Darius.” Feiv’s assault was aimed at the scars both physical and intangible, but if he thought that would bring Darius to his knees he was sorely mistaken. 

His reply was silent, Darius’s will tangling with the Imperial’s, determination galvanizing his reach with razor edges grappling the other’s unseen advances. Darius set his barb-wire will against the Imperial in an attempt to lock it in place.

Feiv’s smirk faltered for a split second as if he was shocked at the strength of Darius' retaliation but recovered. He found his will deadlocked in place, and so took a halting step towards Darius, first one foot, and then another, leaning into the pain.  With each step closer to Darius, Feivush shed parts of his guise. With each step, the pressure of his presence grew as if only the facade of humanity had been holding it back. With each step, raw energy crackled off him and momentarily traced the reach of his power in scorching tears through wavering air. Skin gave way to hardened plates split with the same cold glow that lit the Imperial’s eyes, white teeth became ragged and set in a predatory grin, the broken crown of spines grew and was swept up by horns that arched from strong brows backwards and upwards. His figure grew in bulk and height until he was a head taller than Darius, forcing him to raise his chin to lock gazes. Darius’s face was fixed in a snarl as the Imperial towered over him. A stare of coldest ice bore into him, eyes that threatened to drown him in a frigid torrent, leaving him feeling as if he was waist deep in a river.

“Are you afraid, Darius?” The sonorous voice filled him like the rumble of rapids through narrow ravines.

“Afraid of you? Just because you look like that?” Darius allowed himself a derisive laugh though it sounded distant over the thunder of his heart. “No.”

“Aren’t you scared to find out how much you  _ want _ to be alone?”

Darius staggered with the impact, intangible though it was, breath leaving him in a gasp. The Imperial's strike shook and resonated with a small part of him that thought, in a way, being forsaken would be a kindness. Darius could ignore half his blood, the world closed off from him, and try to assimilate. Try to forget. Temptation weakened his knees and it looked as if he might succumb at last. Darius drew in a ragged breath of ozone-laden air and let it loose in a snarl, throwing the idea off with a vicious twist of his force against Feivush’s. He could feel how tightly the creeping, winding strands had stretched net-like over him but he was no clueless fish to be snared. If Feiv was so set on using his own pain against him, he would let him taste it. Darius wound his own will back into the other’s and let the hot rage in his chest flow like a molten torrent from every inch of his body, igniting a visible glow in his veins as the effort started to drag him from one form to another. 

“You only want me here because I'm a novelty. Why don’t you cut the bullshit and make me leave?” Darius growled over the crack of raw power and roaring of his blood, and his teeth were sharp as his voice, his eyes alight with more than just anger. 

“You wouldn't leave even if I told you to, would you?”

Something in Feivush’s tone made Darius pause - though not because his blow had struck home. Resonant as it was, there was an unmistakable quavering plea in Feivush's question, barely a patina on the timbre of his voice. He realised the invisible grip the other had on him was shaking, strands of the net quivering like plucked strings.  


The demon was  _ desperate. _

Suddenly his vision widened and the rest of the world around them rushed back into his peripherals. Around them churned the storm, proof of their battle manifest in the vicious twists of energy shredding air and arena both in great screaming ribbons of iced blue and bloody flames. The crowd had drawn back from the edge of the forum, even the once-leering Avret driven back by the spectacle. Darius could see it, then, in the brilliant blue-white eyes locked on his, and he knew without looking away from them that he’d see the Imperial’s chest heaving, see the muscles chording out under thick, spiny hide. He could feel how brittle the presence pushed against his own was even as it stood fast. Feivush was giving all that he had but Darius had  _ more. _

“Why don’t you make me leave? Go on, Imperial, if you’re so ready, get rid of me,” He said testingly in a shaking voice that belied the power behind the taunt.

The Imperial tried to reply, but found himself paralysed, feeling Darius’s snare drawing tighter around his throat and realising he was helpless to stop it.

“What if I decide to stay? What if...” Darius said, eyes narrowing, voice strengthening, “I make you kneel?”

The demon was speechless, snarling soundlessly, uncaring his usual calm veneer had been torn asunder by the strain of the contest. Every part of him was focused now on fighting the hold closing on him, sparks dancing over his form starting to draw around his throat in a burning line he couldn’t hope to stop. 

“Will you kneel, Feivush?” Darius’s will sharpened and focused like the hungry edge of a blade where the demon’s pulse thundered in his neck, ready to snap taut and drag him down. 

A flicker in the bright eyes locked to his own stayed his hand - it was the briefest shadow of fear. His stomach churned at the sight of it, almost guttering the inferno of his rage. The deep, inhuman rage in Darius gave him strength, as it often did, but he had no desire to see his friend broken before him. His own face distorting with the effort, he stopped the stranglehold of his hungry reach, holding himself back from smothering the other completely. He would not force his friend to be Bound to him. He was not cruel. He would not be the monster the watchers wanted.

They froze there for a moment that could have lasted hours. Darius holding his snare in tremoring burning line around Feivush's broad neck, the Imperial still as stone. The pair could have been statues save for the searing flashes arcing off them with dissonant shrieks of raw power, the battle of their wills manifest in light and sound. Neither lifted their gaze from the other. Each was begging.

_ Please. _

There was a last moment of unseen struggle in Feivush, the last defiant shred, but the tug of Darius’ will was too much. He knew in his heart could not hope to endure the stalemate without destroying himself - or Darius. In an instant the demon’s resistance turned into acceptance and he let the snare draw him in like the pull of the tide. All the cold fire of the Imperial's desperation mixed into the bloodied razor tangles of Darius's rage until there was no divide between them, until neither could tell who was Binding and who was Bound. 

The whistling bolts built to a crescendo until a single pure note rang out through the ancient stone - then stopped. In the ringing silence that followed, sweeping horns dipped, the huge form folded. Darius found himself looking down at the bowed head of Feivush, the Firebrand, blood of the Oathbreaker, an Imperial, kneeling at the feet of a clanless halfblood.

Something in Darius was unlocked as if the submission was a release from the both of them. It was like the strings Feiv had woven into him and that now bound them together served as an arcane blueprint. For the first time, his change was effortless. Veins that seared his skin in molten tapestry burned to flashover and Darius’s humanity was torn away from the inside in a single blinding pulse. All of the audience saw it then - what Feivush had always seen- the power within Darius that burnt like the core of a star. The radiance cast ashen shadows of his ribs on skin littered with the blackened scars of things that should have killed him but didn’t, burned away the colour of his eyes to sunspots.  The Conclave was silent as Darius lifted his molten gaze. 

“Are we done here?”  None contested the Bond. None could stand against it.  “We’re done here.”

That was enough for many - the hall burst into noise, some turned on their heels and left, some lingered, still disbelieving or perhaps enthralled by the contest. Darius ignored them, as he always had, and looked back to the Imperial before him. Feiv basked in the radiance pouring off him, shuddering in exhaustion and bliss in equal parts, still speechless.

Darius stepped forward to close the last distance to the still-kneeling Imperial.  Feiv looked up at him as he neared, a piercing blue gaze set under a thorny brow, but made no move to stand.  Darius felt exhaustion and relief flood him and couldn't tell if who's it was, his or the Imperial's. His form settled back to the familiar mundane as quickly as it had been ripped away, all his strength gone from him and retreating to the ever-smouldering ember in his chest.  He reached out and his fingers found the soft skin between the spines on Feiv’s jaw. A buzz like static hummed between them at the touch - the Bond, still too new, too raw, too much to discern anything.

“Is this really what you wanted?” He asked, voice raw, even as he knew - he felt - that there was no way the Bond could be false or forced. Somewhere in him he still feared wrongdoing, feared being the monster his kin thought him to be.

At last, the demon’s ragged maw twisted a grin, “It’s exactly what I wanted.”

Darius sagged with relief, sinking to his knees and Feivush moved unbidden to meet him, pressing his forehead to his. 

They stayed entwined, unashamed and uncaring for the moment, as the quicksilver Binding cooled and settled, drawing them closer than a mere embrace could ever hope.


End file.
